San Diego Classic Film Calendar

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Politics and the Fake News

Honestly, aside from the odd comment, I try to avoid politics. At least, once a day, I get dragged into it by my wife, when she asks if I saw something she posted on Facebook. I never have, because about 90% of what I see on Facebook is political. I get enough politics from the Fake News (The Daily Show). The Daily Show will be the first to admit they are Fake News. After The Daily Show, I go to sleep and probably have terrible dreams, but since I never remember my dreams, that's fine by me. I don't need more politics. I need more pictures of puppies. Hence, I avoid Facebook.This morning I watched President Trump's press conference. Now, the president has been criticized for calling the media, Fake News, and I think I might be starting to agree with him, but for totally different reasons. The press conference went like this. The president said more or less the following. The world is screwed up. This country is screwed up. Honestly, I can't disagree with him. He said that despite the resignation of Michael Flynn, his administration is running like a well-oiled machine. Ohhhh-kayyy. He said the news was fake but leaks were real. He spoke about the Muslim ban and how the courts were not cooperating. He also said he beat Hillary. Dude, get over it. He said he won by the biggest electoral margin since Reagan. Finally, he mentioned some stuff about jobs. During the followup, about 90% of the questions were about either the Michael Flynn thing, and a connection between the Trump campaign and Russia, and what he meant by the news being fake and the leaks being real. On followup, to their credit, someone did point out that Trump did not win by the biggest electoral margin since Reagan. Trump explained that he meant as a Republican, and this was just the information someone had given him. Technically, even his correction to his statement was incorrect, George H.W. Bush won by a bigger electoral margin too.I get it. The Russian thing is a big story and may turn out to be the smoking gun that brings down the president. Yes, I do understand most of the people in the White House press corps own the Special Edition Blu-Ray of All the President's Men, but guess what, you are not going to ask that one question that brings down the president as a followup. After the press conference, George Stephanopoulos complained about how out of touch the president was especially with regard, to the well-oiled machine comments. Now this is why I'm thinking Trump may be right about the media being Fake News. Did anyone ask him about the well oiled machine comment, no.

Mr. President, Chris Sturhann, Sturhann Real News Organization. You mentioned several times that your administration was a well-oiled machine. I'd like to ask a hypothetical question, if you bought a company and found out after 3 weeks, that a high-ranking official of that company had misled a VP, who went out on a press junket to perpetuate that misinformation, so that the official had to be forced to resign. Would you think this company was running like a well-oiled machine?

Now the president spoke about jobs. He said that he had spoke with head of Ford and that they were spending I think he said $600 million to bring back jobs that would have gone to Mexico. He also said the he spoke with the head of General Motors, and they were investing billions in infrastructure. Finally, he said he spoke to the head of Walmart, and they were creating 10,000 new jobs. After President Trump mentioned jobs, did they ask any followup questions about jobs? [Crickets]

Mr. President, Chris Sturhann, Sturhann Real News Network for the Advancement of Non-Fake News. You mentioned that Walmart was creating 10,000 new jobs. Considering that Walmart pays mostly low-wages and provides no healthcare, and according to Forbes, Walmart employees cost U.S. taxpayers $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid, and subsidized housing, do you consider these jobs to be helping to make America great again?

Immediately, after the election the media spent a month and a half talking about how surprised they were that Trump won. Consensus seemed to be that people in the rust belt thought that jobs were important, and they had more faith in Trump's ability to help them than Hillary's. Were they listening to themselves or were they masturbating to All the President's Men Again?